


Year Zero

by Yeb_v3



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Anxiety, Characters Older Than In Canon, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Resistance group, Riots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 06:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeb_v3/pseuds/Yeb_v3
Summary: "And none of that matters anymoreIn the hour of our twilightAnd soon it will be all said and doneAnd we will all be back together, as one"The world ends, and is left in complete chaos and ruin. In the midst of the downfall of society, Shuichi Saihara is somehow dragged into a resistance group attempting to bring peace and order, lead by the enigmatic Kokichi Ouma.But who can be trusted when the world ends?





	1. Hyperpower!

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a dumb au idea i had loosely based off of the concept album Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails, and i had fun writing it, so here it is i guess!! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also bandmates will return, one day...
> 
> check out my twitter @yeb_v3

Power.

Everyone wants it.

Everyone desires power.

Everyone would do anything for it.

Everyone says they would be a good leader.

Everyone believes they can handle power.

Everyone abuses power.

No one deserves power.

No one is capable of handling all of the power.

It always ends badly.

Ends in failure.

Ends in blood.

Ends in loss.

Power.


	2. The Beginning Of The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We think we've climb so high  
> Up all the backs we've condemned  
> We face no consequence  
> This is the beginning of the end"

He found himself running, but not getting anywhere. Every step taken seemed to make no progress closer to his destination. What was the destination, who knows. Every time strides forward would be made, silent footfalls would ring out across the void. And while stuck in place, he found he could only reach out into the darkness, the weight of it like hands constricting around his neck. There was only emptiness around him. Cold, black and infinite. Nothing. Complete zero.

He was powerless. And he felt fine.

And that’s when the shrill chiming of an alarm clock ripped Shuichi Saihara out from his bleak dreaming. The beginning of another day. Another normal, uneventful, forgettable day. Nothing would happen. Nothing at all. He would go to work, do his job, talk to his colleagues, eat something at some point, and eventually sleep. In truth, these would be not the actual events of the day, but Shuichi didn’t yet know that. He smacked his alarm clock to shut it up, but didn’t yet get up out from his bed.

A deep sigh came from deep within, as he lay staring up at the bland, colourless ceiling. And in that moment, he felt as if he was back in the dream, surrounded by nothingness. Life felt like that same void that trapped him in his sleep, pointless and power draining. And the bland ceiling was almost a perfect representation of this. Nothing interesting, nothing meaningful. As was the life of the aspiring detective.

If he stayed in this existential pit any longer, he knew that his boss would chide him for another late arrival, so he finally dragged himself out of bed.

The kitchen was a small area, awkwardly small. So small that the door to the oven couldn’t even be pulled open all the way without taking up the majority of the space, and posing serious risk to anyone walking around. It needed to be navigated carefully, but Shuichi was not the most coordinated person. And the tiredness didn’t help. He hadn’t been living there for too long, so the layout wasn’t all that familiar to him yet. So when he smacked his foot into the side of a counter that morning, he wasn’t surprised. It still hurt, though. He let out a strained yelp, taking a step back to evaluate his surroundings once more. He really needed more sleep…

Although it had only been a few weeks, his morning routine was already firmly in place. He wasn’t even thinking through his actions, as he got everything together to make a cup of coffee. The cupboard facing him was opened, and the tub of coffee taken out. Kettle switched on, cheap granules scattered scarcely into the cup, and only a small amount of milk on top. Now he just had to wait for the kettle to boil. So he waited. And he waited. And he very almost slipped back into the void of sleep. In the last second, he jolted back to reality, avoiding rest which would make him late to work. Shuichi really wanted it, needed it even, but he knew that it would just make everything worse.

As time seemed to crawl by, the kettle did not go off. The click that signified the boiling of the water was taking a long while to come around. The man just sleepily gazed at the machine, as if looking at it would make it go quicker, or even just work. His brow furrowed, as he investigated further. The light wasn’t even on. The water wasn’t even beginning to boil. His eyes made their way to the plug socket next to the kettle, and saw that yes, it was definitely plugged in and switched on. But despite this, there was nothing happening. No power was reaching the machine.

At first, Shuichi found this very odd, but not too much to worry about. It was probably just a broken cable, a faulty kettle. All just another job for him to do, he’d probably get around to returning it to the store at some point. Just more boring, mundane stuff that needs to be done. So he left the tight kitchen area, forgetting the coffee and going to get his bag. 

The bag was sat on the one of the few chairs in his apartment. It was a rather small and relatively bare place, as only he lived there, and had only recently moved in. There was only a couple chairs, a small coffee table, and a tv with it's stand in the main part of the apartment. Very little decorated the walls close together walls, just a layer of bland white paint. It wasn’t much, but Shuichi believed that he didn’t need all that much to get by.

But by the time the man had tiredly made his way across the tiny apartment to the bag, something dawned on him. Why was it so dark? The entire place was soaked in dimness, the barely present morning sun the only source of light peeking through a window. Not even the tv was emitting some sort of light. Despite the light switch being turned on, nothing came from the bulb hanging from the ceiling. Bag in hand, Shuichi moved to the door frame, where the seemingly broken light switch was. He flipped it up and down once experimentally, and nothing happened. He tried again, again, again, and again, but nothing. Light refused to come through at all.

And that’s when he realised what had happened. The kettle, the lights, the tv, nothing worked. He had no power. He must have had the power to his house cut. That could be the only explanation, he must’ve missed a bill, and now he has no power. That had to be it. All he could do was sigh. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now, he needed to get to work quickly. 

Picking up his phone and sliding it into his pocket, he headed out of his apartment. There was no time to check the phone, to look through any notifications or read any social media. He was almost late, so he got out the door as quickly as possible, and started the short journey to his workplace.

While the private investigator he worked for was less than two minutes on foot away from his apartment, he usually saw a lot of other people walking down the busy streets. Normally cars passed by, and the general hustle and bustle of city life was in full force. But not on that day. Instead, it was completely desolate. No cars passed by. No pedestrians strolled past. Nothing. But Shuichi was just too tired and in too much of a rush to realise or really care.

The office was quiet. Scarily quiet for 9am on a tuesday. There was no tapping of keyboards, no light scribbling of pens, no exasperated private investigators, nothing. Dull morning sun vaguely pierced a veil of grey clouds, casting a fatigued glow across empty desks. The clock continued ticking, ticking, ticking, the only noticeable sound in the disturbingly quiet room. In fact, it wasn't just quiet, it was silent. Dead silent. There was no one present to break the eerie nothingness, no one to speak louder than the ticking clock. And it sent shivers down Shuichi’s spine.

Upon tiredly stumbling through the door, it came as a shock to Shuichi to see that the private investigators office space in which he worked at was completely desolate. Not a single person sat in the handful of chairs dotted around next to desks in the rather small room. Admittedly, the firm he had recently got his first job at wasn't massively staffed (it was only his second week and he already knew the majority of his few colleagues well), but it was still a strange sight to see. People should be there, it was normal working hours. They didn't have a day off, did they? 

He slid off his jacket, and hung it by the door. Observing the empty spaces, he noted how there were no other jackets there. It was only his, alone. He took a few steps further into the room, making sure to check every possible place with a brief glance to see if there was anyone there. Instead, only computer monitors and bland office space could be seen.

He moved in to investigate one of the desks further, pushing the chair aside to take a look at the computer. Shuichi leaned down, and stared into the reflective black of the screen. Upon seeing his reflection, he noted how fearful he looks. Lamenting his emotions, he returned to investigation. As for the computer, It looked untouched, like it hadn’t been powered on since the previous day of work. A very thin layer of dust lay over the keys. On top of that, seeing no signs of anyone else at all, not on his short walk from his apartment a few buildings away, not upon entering the building, not anywhere. He concluded that he was definitely the first to get here, and that everyone else was incredibly late, or had disappeared off of the face of the earth.

Why was everything so strange today?

As his anxiety grew, so did the urge to reach for his phone and call someone in an attempt to get answers. His pale, trembling hand slipped in his pocket, and as he grasped the phone, the pit in his stomach just deepened further and further. Nausea started to set in as it came out his pocket, and his breathing quickened significantly. He found himself needing to take a seat at one of the desks, for he feared his legs would give out from underneath him. And as he opened his phone, he could feel the beads of cold sweat that rolled down his forehead.

The first call went to his boss. The ringing tone was the only sound audible alongside the ticking of the clock. It carried on for far too long, and Shuichi started to double over on himself to deal with the anxious pain eating away at him. He waited and waited, the 30 seconds feeling like an elongated eternity in which his heart beat too fast and his stomach dropped far too low. His hands shook weakly as he pulled the phone away from his ear, realising that he wasn’t going to get through to his boss. Then began the frantic calls. He tried each one of his colleagues, but none of them answered him. Not one could pick up the phone. Each time he was greeted with the same tone, before realising that he was getting nowhere with it.

In his mind, the next logical step was to attempt to call everyone else in his contacts. Every friend, family member, any number he had in his phone received a frenzied attempt at a call from Shuichi, all in an attempt to establish contact with someone, anyone. Everything was met with the same failure. He came to the conclusion that the phone network must have completely died. And that was the moment he realised that something was very, very wrong.

The only sounds in the office was the ticking of the clock, and the now strained breathing of Shuichi. Everything seemed to be wrong, and he couldn’t fight off the panic any longer. Curled up in an office chair, with very little light, clutching onto his useless phone, he started to break down. What was happening? What had happened to the world around him?

Why was there no power? Why was there no one in the streets? Why is there no one in the office? Why are all of the phones dead?

Everything pointed towards terrible things, but there was only one way Shuichi could really see what was going on.

For once, he was so glad to see that his phone actually had charge. Normally, he didn’t care too much for his phone, as it wasn’t that useful to him. There was never much use for it, personally. But he was certainly glad to have it now. It almost fell straight out of his trembling hands, and onto the floor with how much he was shaking with pure anxiety. 

His first instinct was to look at his news app, which thankfully didn’t require a connection to access. As he sat, huddled in the office chair, he stared at the screen that was the only light in the entire room.   
Shuichi’s face was bathed in the harsh, white glow of the phone screen he held in his sweaty quaking hands. With one hesitant tap, the application opened up, and displayed the most recent and relevant headlines.

Those very headlines shook Shuichi to his core.

“BREAKING NEWS: Complete Overnight collapse of Government, Economy and World Leadership, Riots Break Out Worldwide, Martial Law Now In Effect”

“-The populations of major cities have been advised to stay inside and not leave under any circumstances, due to the volatile rioting in a large amount of areas-“

“-Services such as power, water, and phone networks have failed as a result-

“This is the beginning of the end.”

So many words flashed by Shuichi in such a short amount of time, and very few of them made coherent sense. Sure, he knew exactly what they said, but he just didn’t register what they meant exactly. Had society really collapsed overnight? It couldn’t have, right? That’s just not possible. It was all a joke, it had to be. Although April was long gone, it was just an incredibly belated prank pulled for the start of that month, of course. In a few minutes those streets will fill up, his colleagues will walk in and his kettle will work again. Shuichi was frantically making up any excuse, any explanation, anything that wasn’t the truth.

And there he sat, completely powerless, crying, worrying, and just plain scared.

Although, he does find it almost comical that he was the last person to hear about the end of the world.

What felt like an hour had passed until he moved from his spot in the office chair. Maybe it was more than an hour, he could hardly tell due to the shock. Nothing had happened except for his phone battery running lower. No one had come through that door, no one called him back, and he still hadn’t had his morning coffee. He wanted to believe that these things would definitely happen, but over the course of the hour he spent completely still, it became more obvious that none of that stuff would happen. It became more and more obvious that the world really had ended. And he did not feel fine.

Glancing up at the clock mounted upon the wall, he saw how long he had really been sitting in shock. It was now 1pm. Had it really been 5 hours?

Shuichi knew that he had to get out of there, that he had to get back to his apartment where it was safer, where he had been advised to stay. The place he never should’ve left in the first place. Getting up from the office chair he had made his temporary home, he realised just how much the deep anxiety sitting in his stomach hurt, even when just walking. Stumbling, he was able to get up and out of the chair, and over to leaning on a windowsill. And for a moment, he stood against the wall, weak legs hardly supporting his body, now heavy with fear and uncertainty. And these emotions would only be amplified with a glance up through the window he leant against. 

From the window, a figure whose face was obscured by a hoodie and bandana could be seen climbing over a car that had crashed into a storefront. It smoked lightly, as the masked individual hopped off of it, swinging the baseball bat they held around as they did so. Thoughts raced through Shuichi’s mind as he focused in on the car. Was that there this morning when he walked by? Was he just too tired to realise it? Or did the crash happen in the last 5 hours? Was he so in shock that he didn’t hear that? 

Looking further through the window, he saw that the masked person was not alone. Several other rioters, faces covered and armed, littered the streets below. Walking around, smashing windows, fighting within themselves, every action they performed exuded pure violence and destruction. And it all made Shuichi’s stomach drop even further.

This really was the end of the world. And he was stuck, cornered in an office, having a complete breakdown. He couldn’t leave, not yet at least, and even when he could, what was he meant to do?

He was alone, powerless.

And he was starting to wish he could return to that void he found himself floating within in his bleak dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In hope you enjoyed!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank You for reading!!!


End file.
